Govt proposes steep hike on vehicle registration, renewal charges

Highlights

The road transport ministry has proposed to hike the registration and renewal fee of conventional vehicles by more than 20 times

Currently, the charges are Rs 600 for both fresh registration and renewal

NEW DELHI: Soon you may have to shell out Rs 5,000 for registration of new petrol and/or diesel car apart from Rs 10,000 for renewal of registration. Currently, the charges are Rs 600 for both fresh registration and renewal. The road transport ministry has proposed to hike the registration and renewal fee of conventional vehicles by more than 20 times. On the contrary, it has already notified a draft proposal to do away with the registration fee of electric or battery operated vehicles. TOI on May 30 had first reported about the government move aimed at discouraging people from buying conventional vehicles and to promote zero-emission vehicles. It has also proposed frequent fitness tests of commercial petrol and diesel vehicles and in the case of commercial vehicles more than 15 years old tests twice a year. The ministry has proposed to increase the fee for manual and automated fitness tests. As per the proposal, an additional fee of Rs 50 will be charged for each day, if the owners of more than 15-year-old vehicles fail to get fresh fitness certificate before they expire. Currently, registration is valid for 15 years for all categories of vehicles across the country except in Delhi where there is a complete ban on re-registration of petrol and diesel vehicles after 15 and 10 years respectively. The ministry has proposed that the registration and renewal fee won’t be charged from electric vehicles with maximum speed of 25 kmph and those who scrap their old vehicle to buy a new one would also be exempted from paying this amount. "This is one of the incentives that the government will offer to people scrapping their old polluting vehicles under the voluntary scrapping policy, which will be notified soon," said a government official. According to different studies, older vehicles are 25 times more polluting as compared to newer ones.